Murder trial nears conclusion

The trial of a Nigerian man accused of beating his Jamaican wife to death with a lump hammer at a Dublin apartment today reached its final stages at the Central Criminal Court.

Goodwill Udechukwu (aged 32) with a previous address at Royal Canal View, Royal Canal Bank Phibsboro has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Natasha Gray at a Dublin apartment on February 18, 2003.

The mother of two died from head injuries after being hit a number of times with a blunt instrument. Her body was found in a child’s cot with a lump hammer beside her.

Today, Ms Pauline Walley SC began summing up the prosecution’s case to the jury.

She said it was the evidence of the prosecution that Mr Udechukwu planned to kill his wife and had purchased a lump hammer and a hatchet at a hardware store with the intention of killing her.

She said it was up to the jury members whether they accept that Mr Udechukwu was the man in the video stills taken from a hardware shop in Dublin city centre.

She also claimed that if Mr Udechukwu did kill his wife, then two of the most important witnesses he needed to discredit were his wife’s sister Nicola Curtis and her friend Sharon Facey, because they were there on the morning she was killed.

Mr Blaise O’Carroll SC for the defence asked the jury whether the evidence from these prosecution witnesses was “a deliberate attempt to paint Mr Udechukwu in the worst possible light” and “to cause maximum prejudice so your mind isn’t capable of listening to him at all”.

He told them they must have the judicial mind of someone in pursuit of justice.

He later added: “That’s what Mr Udechukwu wants. Justice for Natasha.”

He said his client had been excluded as the possible source of a partial fingerprint found on the lump hammer at the scene and a partial DNA profile developed on a shirt allegedly worn by Ms Gray’s killer.

The jury will hear a charge from the trial judge Mr Justice Kevin O’Higgins before rising to consider its verdict.